Your Right to Know

Columbus’ budget for next year is about making the city whole from cuts it endured during the
Great Recession and changing public education, Mayor Michael B. Coleman said yesterday.

A confident but jet-lagged Coleman presented his proposal for the city’s 2014 operating budget
of $796.7 million that he said maintains police and fire forces and allocates $7.5 million to help
educate children. The budget is about $22 million, or 3 percent, higher than this year’s approved
spending plan.

Columbus City Council is expected to add items to the budget next month, probably tipping it
past $800 million.

Coleman, who returned late Thursday from an economic-development summit in Mexico, often went
off script during his 25-minute speech at City Hall.

He seemed to have recovered from last week’s sound defeat of the 9.01-mill levy for Columbus
City Schools. He vowed he will not stop trying to improve education.

“We know the levy wasn’t successful, and we understand why. Among those reasons is that the
district has not yet earned the trust of this community,” he said. “I get it. But while the failure
of the levy is a reality, the failure of kids is not an option.”

Specifics of his education-spending plan aren’t clear, but Coleman plans to hire a cabinet-level
director of education who will work with the school board. He said the

$7.5 million will fund initiatives proposed by his Columbus Education Commission, but he wants
to determine where the city’s money can make the greatest academic impact.

Besides education and beefing up the city’s Code Enforcement Division to beat back neighborhood
blight, Coleman also proposed:

• Adding $3.3 million to the Department of Recreation and Parks, in part, to open all of the
city’s recreation centers full time. Six centers are open part time. Coleman said some of that
money also would go to clean up parks.

Reopening the recreation centers, Coleman said, “makes the city whole” from cuts made during the
recession.

• Hiring 70 police officers and 40 firefighters, mostly to replace those who retire, are fired
or are promoted. The city plans to spend about $529 million on public safety in 2014, an increase
of about $15 million from this year.

Firefighters union President Jack Reall said that although the city is spending more on public
safety, the spending is not keeping pace with the city’s growing budget. About 70 percent of
Columbus’ budget this year went to public safety. Safety would account for 66 percent of next year’s
budget.

“The city budgeted for 1,567 firefighters in 2011, and at the end of 2014, it’s at 1,548,” Reall
said, “and the city keeps growing, and our emergency runs keep increasing.”

• A $10.6 million deposit into the city’s rainy-day fund. The city’s reserve is about $54
million this year and by the end of 2014 is to be about

$65 million. The city wants to boost the rainy-day fund — which was nearly depleted by the
recession — to $75 million by 2018.

Auditor Hugh J. Dorrian and Coleman said the reserve will ensure that the city retains its AAA
bond ratings — the highest marks possible.

The increased spending is made possible by voters’ 2009 approval of an income-tax increase to
2.5 percent, from 2 percent.

The city anticipates about $577.4 million in income-tax revenue next year, although that is a
conservative estimate. The city expects about $560.6 million in income-tax revenue this year.

The rest of the revenue comes from charges for governmental services, property taxes and shared
revenue from the state.

But although Columbus’ financial outlook is sunny, big issues plague the city.

Many neighborhoods are struggling with double-digit unemployment rates, and household median
income is significantly below the national average. Census data show the city’s median income was
$43,207 last year; nationwide, it was $51,371.

The school district also remains the city’s biggest liability, Coleman said. He said the
district’s inability to graduate enough students and meet state standards is causing the city to
lose out on more residents and businesses looking to relocate.